ABSTRACT
Today’s pay-with-data exchanges deprive web users of control. Creating appropriate value optimal norms would transform these transactions into control-enhancing agreements people use to give free and informed consent to acceptable terms. So the critical question is how to create the norms. We recommend rebellion. Web users should (at least threaten to) use the technological power they have to prevent the data collection needed for behavioral advertising. For convenience, we will again call web users “buyers” and the website owners “sellers”—even when no money is exchanged. We begin by explaining why we think the key is for buyers to use their technological power. We do so by describing pay-with-data exchanges as a game of Chicken that buyers play repeatedly with sellers under conditions that guarantee buyers always lose. The “real” game of Chicken is traditionally played with cars. Two drivers at opposite ends of a road drive toward each other at high speed. The first to swerve loses. Buyers play a similar game with sellers—with one crucial difference: Buyers know in advance that sellers will never “swerve.” Before we look at that game, we need to look more at the “real” game of Chicken.
